Josh Freed: I've had e

Montreal has long led North American cities in bike enthusiasm, but our bike paths are increasingly filled with electric contraptions driven by people with no experience.

There’s a growing menace to Montreal cyclists, and for a change it’s not just cars.

It’s also other bikes, along with e-bikes, e-scooters, e-roller blades, e-hoverboards, e-unicycles and other new e-wheeled contraptions.

They’re turning our streets and bike paths into over-crowded, two-wheel E-xpressways, bursting with speeding traffic. It’s all making many long-time cyclists nervous, including BikeJosh.

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I was cycling home from an evening show recently on the downtown De Maisonneuve Blvd. bike path. But it was so filled with shadow-hidden potholes, along with e-cyclists, Bixis, scooters and e-scooters — some with no lights — I fled for quieter Sherbrooke St. where I felt safer among our city’s motorists than my fellow cyclists.

Mostly it’s a problem of our city’s cyclo-maniacal success. Montreal has long led all other North American cities in bike paths, Bixis and bike enthusiasm.

This despite the fact we’re one of the coldest, snowiest cities anywhere and should specialize in icicle paths not bicycle paths. But as ever more people try out two-wheel transport, biking here’s getting zanier and scarier.

Obviously 2,000-kilogram fast-moving cars are still the most dangerous threat to fragile bikes, especially on streets like Parc Ave. where cyclists get squeezed into dangerous heavy traffic.

But those dangers are now aggravated by pothole-pocked, over-crowded bike paths, filled with an array of speeding e-contraptions that may not always qualify as bikes.

The situation isn’t helped by many newbie young e-cyclists who need basic Biking 101 lessons.

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The whole continent has recently begun emulating Montreal’s cycling success, but how can our city keep up with its own success?

E-nlarged paths: Our decades-old bike paths feel practically prehistoric. They’re too narrow for today’s jam-packed cycling traffic, where moms toting kids to daycare must squeeze by speeding e-bikes, e-scooters and sometimes mini-motorcycles coming the opposite direction, inches away.

Shared e-scooter rentals were briefly banned here, but have now become so popular everywhere the city recently authorized a three-year trial period, with speeds limited to 25 km/h.

But as e-scooter traffic explodes here and worldwide, there’s talk of “scootergeddon” in many cities.

In a recent referendum, Paris massively voted against keeping shared e-scooters, partly because of accidents from reckless driving.

Will Montreal eventually need separate e-scooter paths, followed by e-unicycle paths?

The dizzying array of new e-vehicles obviously needs more road space. But how to find it without taking too much more away from frustrated motorists, already trapped between potholed streets and orange-coned rues barrées?

We don’t want a motorist backlash battle like the ones that divided and held back cycling in Toronto and other cities.

E-bike or motor vehicle? The explosion in electric bikes is enticing many people onto two wheels for the first time. Most of these e-bikes require some pedalling and belong on bike paths.

But some e-vehicles have no pedals, powerful motors and look much like motor scooters. Sometimes a motorcycle is just a motorcycle and belongs on the road.

Newb-E-s: Aggravating the situation are novice e-bike riders. It takes months of driving lessons and tests to operate a car but almost anyone can hop on a motorized two-wheeler without training — and lately many are.

Last month I was cycling down my block, leaving a small safety gap between me and the parked cars on my right, to avoid being “doored” by an emerging driver.

Suddenly, a teenager on an e-bike blasted by on my right, squeezing through the tiny gap between me and the parked cars — without even a customary warning cry.

She brushed my arm and I almost toppled over, but she sped on oblivious.

As CarJosh too, I’ve had nerve-wracking close calls with fast-moving e-vehicles swerving across my path in the dark, their drivers sometimes clad in black, forcing me to slam on my brakes.

In the U.S., “junior” motorized e-bikes are now being marketed for children as young as five, with names like eKid, that many worry are mini-motorcycles for children.

Fortunately we’re not there in Montreal, but e-vehicles do have many gray zones when it comes to licensing and speed limit enforcement.

We Quebec motorists were once reckless cowboys who weaved from lane to lane. But decades of training and ticketing have made most drivers respectful of cyclists, and given Quebecers the second lowest car fatality rate in Canada.

Yet not all e-cyclists are as courteous to their biking brethren. I’m not sure what our squads of cops-on-bikes do, but I rarely see them patrolling our bike paths. Perhaps they could enforce some e-biking rules while cruising around too.

How about handing out some tickets to speeding e-vehicles, especially motor scooters that don’t belong on bike paths. Also to those food couriers with one hand on the handlebar and the other texting — or scrolling their phones, searching for their next pizza client’s address on their GPS maps.

The bike and e-vehicle revolution is a great step toward getting more cars off the road, especially in warmer Montreal months.

Let’s embrace our city’s love affair with two wheels, but take some of the mania out of our cyclomania.

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